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Tuesday, 26 August 2014

Newminster Abbey, Morpeth (NZ189857)

A little beyond the southern extremities of our region can
be found a landscape riddled with the remains of abbeys and monasteries. As one
creeps ever northwards they thin out noticeably, and anything north of the Tyne
is a very rare specimen indeed (we can thank the Scots and their periodic raids
for that). The largest such establishment in Northumberland is thought to have
been that on the south bank of the Wansbeck near Morpeth, and was called
Newminster Abbey.

This nigh-on forgotten religious house has now been almost
completely wiped from the landscape, but it was quite a significant institution
in its time. It was, in fact, one of the first daughter houses to be founded by
the famous Fountains Abbey in Yorkshire – quite possibly the very first, some
say. This all happened around 1137 when the Cistercians were invited north by
local noble, Ranulph de Merlay, and his wife, Juliana. ‘Robert of Newminster’
from Fountains was appointed the new abbey’s first abbot, ruling the roost with
considerable vigour from 1138 to 1159. A year after its founding the Scots came
down and set the place abaze – and as part of the resultant peace treaty with
the English pretty much everything north of the Tyne was ruled by the Scots
during 1139-57. The monastery slowly recovered under Robert’s enthusiastic
leadership, being properly rebuilt by 1180.

Morpeth’s wealthy residents occasionally granted land and
possessions to the young institution, and it came to exercise control over much
of the land from the Wansbeck to the Scottish border. No one seems to know
quite how extensive its influence was, but in time it spawned daughter
monasteries of its own at Pipewell (Northamptonshire) and Roche and Sawley
(both in Yorkshire). By the late thirteenth century, Newminster Abbey also had
two hospitals dependent upon it, at Mitford and Allerburn. This all mattered
little come the Dissolution, though, when it was officially sacked in Henry
VIII’s first round of plundering in 1537. The Greys came into possession and
thereafter began the systematic robbing of its masonry over successive
generations. In turn, the Brandlings and then the Ords assumed ownership.

Newminster Abbey was last used in 1937 for the 400th
anniversary of its closure. Most of what remains today is hidden underground or
under trees. However, a nice collection of photographs from the 1960s can be
found here.

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